Being Prepared for Christ's Return - Part 2 — Zac Poonen

Christ’s Judgment Seat and the Final Examination

I'd like to turn to a passage in 2nd Corinthians 5. I'm thinking of how it will be when Christ comes back to this earth. And we see him face to face. It says in 2nd Corinthians 5 in verse 10, We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one will be rewarded for his deeds done in his body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

So the first thing that's going to happen when Christ comes again, and we are caught up to meet with him in the air, and we welcome him to this earth, he's going to set up his judgment seat. There are a few things that the Lord has told us that will happen when he comes again.

And when he sets up his judgment seat, he's going to... It's going to be plenty of time to do it. Everything that we have done, every believer is going to stand there, every believer, from the beginning of time.

And one by one, each one, it says each one, which means one by one, will be... recompense means rewarded or punished. There's a meaning of recompense. For his deeds which he did in his body, according to what he did, whether good or bad.

This is a very real truth. And therefore it says in verse 11, knowing this and the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. And since this is going to be true, verse 9, we have only one ambition. And that is to please him.

Because if that is our ambition, then when Christ comes back, I'll be ready to meet him. I will have nothing to fear. It's like a student who has prepared very well for the final examination, and he sits down to write the examination, and he's not afraid, there's no nervousness.

And he looks at the question paper, and he knows the answer to every single question. And he gets a hundred percent. Because he's prepared for it. And there could be other students sitting in the examination hall who get all nervous when they see the question paper and say, boy, I never studied that.

I never studied the other one. I didn't even know this subject would be coming. Like we tell children, study for the subjects that will come in your final examination. We also need to make sure, I mean, I'm not saying that children should not play games.

By all means, play games. Have a little bit of relaxation. You need to sleep. But with all that, concentrate on studying for the subjects that are coming for the final examination. What is the Lord going to test in the final examination?

Judgment seat of Christ is like a final examination. Every one of us has to sit for that test. What is the Lord going to test? It's good for us to know now. I don't want to get a surprise at the judgment seat and discover that I didn't prepare for the subjects that were important.

Judging Others Before the Lord’s Appointed Time

Let me show you a couple of things that are going to be important in the final examination. Please turn with me to 1 Corinthians in chapter 4. Now I'm telling you the subjects will come in the final examination so that we can prepare for it now.

Here it says about don't pass judgment on others before the time. You know how all of us have got a great desire to pass judgment on others. We very rarely judge ourselves, but to pass judgment on why that person did that or why did he do that or why did she go there or behave like this.

We are very quick at that. And for all those who have a great desire to judge others what the Holy Spirit is saying, just wait. He's not saying don't judge. Wait at the right time. Judge. In other words, don't judge before you know all the facts.

Isn't that a good rule? It says about Jesus in Isaiah 11 3, he would never judge by what his ears heard or by what his eyes saw. He would never judge by what his eyes saw or his ears heard. That's a very good rule to follow because a lot of things that our eyes see are not true.

One of the biggest fruits of that is the sun. The sun that rises in the east and sets in the west. Our eyes seem to tell us that the sun is moving. In fact, for 5 ,300 years of human history, all human beings, all the cleverest people believed the sun was moving.

For 5 ,000 years, people much cleverer than you and me believed the sun was moving because they believed what their eyes saw. Until a man called Copernicus in Europe decided to check up. Is it really true or not?

And he discovered the sun doesn't move in the solar system. It's the earth that's rotating on its axis and it looks as if the sun is moving. Lesson from that, don't believe what your eyes see. And I believe that God has allowed the sun to rise and set every day to teach us don't believe what your eyes see.

It's one of the lessons God's trying to teach you by the movement of the sun. It doesn't move. So we can be so sure. I saw him do that. I'm sure he did it. Don't be so sure. Don't judge. You may not know all the facts.

So it's a very good lesson for us to stop judging by what our eyes see. Don't judge by what your ears hear also. Do you know there are sounds which our ears cannot hear? I don't know whether you know that even if you have got the sharpest hearing.

There's a thing called a dog whistle. A dog whistle has got such a high frequency and that if somebody blows it you hear nothing because it is beyond the frequency of your ear. Your ear has got a certain frequency range.

Only sounds within that frequency range can be heard. If it's beyond that you can't hear it. But that dog hears it very clearly. Because a dog's ear's frequency range is more than yours and mine. It hears that whistle.

That's why it's called a dog whistle. And if somebody blew a dog whistle and you say, no, there was no sound. Don't believe what your ears hear. Your ears can't hear that. That's all. So I keep these two examples before me and say, Lord, I think I'm a very clever human being.

That dog knows more than me about whether there was a sound or not. It humbles me to know that there are things. I mean, a dog can pick up a smell much better than I can. It can trace a criminal, these police dogs.

It can just go near a suitcase and find out if there are drugs inside it. I can't. It's amazing. So I when I realized these things, I obeyed the scripture which says don't judge by what your eyes see or your ears hear.

I'm not saying you shouldn't judge. But investigate more fully. Find out the full truth. Otherwise, we will pass judgment on people and afterwards say, that wasn't true. I unnecessarily judge that person.

Have you had experiences like that? I have had and I regret it so much that it has taught me not to judge by what my eyes see or my ears hear until I have investigated it fully. I'm not saying we should be dumb and just ignore everything.

All I'm saying is investigate it fully. Judge, but judge. Don't judge before the time. So that's what it's saying here. Don't, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 5, don't go on passing judgment before the time. And what is the time?

That is when the Lord comes. We are talking about the coming of the Lord. We're still on that subject. The Lord is coming. That is the time when you will see clearly and you'll be able to judge. That brother whom you thought, ah, he was, he's not a serious Christian or he's, you thought he was, he was not much, he was not very gifted.

He was sitting at the back of the hall. But he probably did such a lot for the Lord, which you knew nothing about, in secret. Maybe he gives, he gave so much of his money for God's work, which you never knew about.

And you get a shock. You mean that chap gave away so much of his money for God's work? And I didn't think much of him on the earth and he was doing so much in secret for the poor people and doing serving people in so many ways.

I never knew about it. That day you will know so many things. That is why Jesus said in that day many who are last will be standing up first at the judgment seat of Christ. And many who are sitting up in front who you preach so well and do so many things and you think they are going to be the greatest people in God's kingdom, they'll be at the end of the queue.

Because it will be shown that God was not so happy with their life. They just impressed you. So he said that. He didn't say everybody who's last will come first and everybody who's first will come last.

That's not what he said. There are people like Paul and Peter and all who were first, who will be first in the final day too. And there are others who are lazy and last in the church today. They'll be last in the final day too.

But many, not any, not all, but many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first. It's true because we don't see clearly what people are doing in secret. So that's what he's saying.

Don't judge till the time comes. Because when the Lord comes there are two things he's going to expose. Here's what I said. The subjects that are going to be important in the final day. Here are two subjects that are going to be very important in the final examination.

Hidden Things and the Motives of the Heart

Get ready for it. Number one subject, the things hidden in darkness. What are the things hidden in darkness? First of all, our thoughts. And then all the things we do which other people can't see. So when the Lord comes, he's not going to primarily reveal the things that were done in public.

Like, you know, the things you've done in the church and the things you did in the presence of other believers. That is not going to be so much evident because everybody has seen it. But the things hidden in darkness, that means darkness as far as other people in the church are concerned.

For example, all the people in your church and my church know only about 10 of your life or less than that. Because most of your life you're in their home or in the office or driving on the roads. Nobody knows whether you got angry in the car at some other driver.

Because you were alone in the car. Nobody knows what you yelled at somebody or there's a thing called road rage. There's a lot of it in the world today. But nobody sees it. It's all dark in the darkness.

Nobody sees how you behave in the office. Whether there are any things you sign and take money for which are unrighteous, false statements. Whether you claim money from people, from the company which you don't deserve to claim.

Who knows? You look like a very holy person in the church. You sing well. Maybe you preach well too, but there's a lot of sin in private, in darkness. Things which other people can't see. Things which others in the church don't see.

And certain things which even your wife and children don't see. What you do in the office. Maybe things which are appear right in the eyes of men, but not right in the eyes of God. Those are some of the things hidden in darkness.

And the other area of darkness is our thought life. And our thought life even your wife cannot know. Even if you're married for 50 or 75 years, your wife does not know what's going on in your thoughts.

You can be a thoroughly impure man in your thoughts and externally look like a very faithful husband, but it'll come out in the final day. Subjects that are going to be important in the final examination.

Number one, the things hidden in darkness. It's God's word. Things in your private life and things in your thought life. The thoughts, for example, I believe that you can live with your wife for 50, 60 years and she cannot know whether you love money.

Because it's so easy to pretend that you don't love money. Just be generous now and then and let everybody know about your generosity. And people say, oh, he doesn't love money. He gave so much money here.

But that's not the test. What we love, Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So in other words, what your mind is mostly thinking about, that is your real treasure. If your mind frequently thinks about the things of God, that is your treasure.

I don't mean you neglect your earthly work or your family responsibilities. You do all that. I'm talking about times when your mind is free. Our mind is not occupied 24 hours. Nobody's mind is occupied 24 hours.

We sleep six or seven hours and the rest of the time we are not always thinking of work. We have to do our work. Students have to think of their studies. All that is okay. But when our mind is free from our studies and free from our work and free from your housework, mothers, when the mind is free, where does it go to?

That is the test of where our treasure is. And there in my free time, if I'm always thinking of how can I be richer? How can I make more money? That's where your treasure is. Somebody else may be thinking, well, what can I do for the Lord now?

That's where his treasure is. But who knows that? Not even your wife. I've used an illustration sometimes to help this. The Bible says in Colossians 3, set your mind on the things that are above and not on the things on the earth.

You know that verse, Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 to 3. Set your mind on the things that are above where Christ is at the right hand of the Father and not on the things of the earth. And the way I illustrate it, you know, we have to think about many things on the earth.

We have to concentrate on our work. When you drive the car, you have to concentrate on the car. You have to make sure your car is working. A wife has to concentrate on cooking food and looking after the children.

So the illustration I've used is of a rubber band. See, for example, if this is a picture of this top part is a picture of heaven and this bottom of this pulpit is a picture of earth. If I tie a rubber band to this mic here, that is my mindset on the things above and I have to stretch it to the things of earth for eight hours for my work.

Stretched. And for one or two hours of driving on the road, it is stretched to earthly things or your wives and mothers have to stretch it to look after children and looking after cooking and everything.

It may be 10 or 12 hours. The mind is stretched to so many things on this earth. Absolutely right. We have to be faithful in that. Now, my question is when you're finished all your work, when this work is all done and the rubber band is released, it goes back up here to the things above.

But with most Christians, it is not like that. The rubber band is tied down here at the bottom and then it's stretched up church service time for one or two hours and maybe 15 minutes of reading the Bible a day.

And then when that exercise is over, two hours on a Friday or Sunday, it's released back to the things of earth now. How to make more money and what pleasure can I get from somewhere? This is the difference.

It doesn't mean that a man who set his mind on things above doesn't care for things of earth. He does his work or not much more faithfully than the other person whose mind is set on the things of earth because God helps him.

So setting your mind on things above, the way to test it is when you're released from during the day from all earthly responsibilities, even if it's only for 15 minutes a day because you were so busy that day, where does your mind go to?

There you know, if you want to know about yourself, where your treasure really is. I'm telling you a subject that's going to be important in your final examination. So those are the things hidden in darkness.

Nobody knows. You don't know about me. Even if you've heard me preach for years, you can think there's a very godly man and he's always thinking about heaven and all that. It may not be true. You don't know my thoughts.

You don't know what I'm thinking about when I'm alone. By myself. I don't know about you either. But one day I will know everything about you. And I'll tell you something. One day you'll know everything about me as well.

Because it'll all be exposed. And the other thing, here's another subject that's going to be important in the final day. 1 Corinthians 4 verse 5. First of all, the things hidden in darkness. I explained that.

And second, the motives of men's hearts. In other words, not what you did. But why you did it. In the final day, what you did will be important. But why you did it will be much more important. 10 marks for what you did.

90 marks for why you did it. I'm not saying what you did is not important. What you said. Important. 10 marks. Why you said it. 90 marks. Think if you evaluate your life like that. We can do so many good things and get 10 marks, 10 marks, 10 marks.

And we are losing 90 marks all the time. Because the motive with which you did it may have been completely wrong. It may have been for your own honor. Take something like preaching. Isn't preaching a very good thing?

Very good. Think of reaching out to the world through television. Etc. And everybody admires the person who preaches so powerfully. But God, okay, 10 marks. Clear gospel he has preached. But he still fails because the 90 marks goes for the motive.

And his motive may be, I want to get money from these people. I want these old people to come up with an offering for my ministry or my church. Or maybe I don't need their money, but I want their honor.

I want them to think of me as a great preacher or something like that. Motive. 90 marks for motive. 10 marks for the sermon. Or some other thing you did for the Lord. 10 marks for that. Very well done.

90 marks for why did you do it. A lot of us do, many of us do some things for the Lord. It's excellent. You do things for the Lord. Very good. Give yourself 10 marks if you did it very well. And then give 90 marks for the motive with which you did it.

And you'll suddenly discover that you have failed in that subject. Where you thought you had passed. The hidden motives of the heart is going to be very, very important in the final day. Subjects that are important in your final examination.

Concentrate on those subjects. This is how we can be ready for the coming of the Lord. What if we have failed in our past life? Thank God we can confess it. Ask the Lord to forgive. You know, very often we are quick to ask the Lord to forgive us some something we actually did which other people saw.

Something wrong. Other people knew about it and I said it right. But we are not so careful to confess thoughts that were bad or an attitude to somebody else that was not good. Can you think of the last time you confessed to the Lord an attitude of yours towards some other brother that was not good?

When you went to the Lord and said, Lord, I'm very sorry. I had this wrong attitude towards that person or that sister. When was the last time you did that? Or when was the last time you went to the Lord and said, Lord, that is a good thing I did, but my motive always was to get some glory for myself.

I did that in the church, but I wanted everybody to know it. And I wanted to get some glory for myself. I get 10 out of 100 for what I did. And the other question, 90. Zero. 90 percent. Zero. You know, if you evaluate yourself like this, you'll be ready for the final examination.

I'm telling you, before God, that's what I do. I prepare for my final examination. I take it seriously, just like you tell your children to prepare for the subjects that are coming in the final examination.

I prepare for my final examination. I prepare for the subjects that are important there. And Bible knowledge is not going to be important in that day. I'll tell you that. Bible knowledge is useful on the earth.

If I can apply it to my life, I can use it to preach to others. But in that day, there are no marks for Bible knowledge. Very important to teach our children that. Your children may be doing well in school.

I remember when my children were small and every year in school, they would have a prize-giving day. The children, when my children came back with a prize to the house, first thing we do as soon as we enter the house, we say, okay boys, let's pray.

First thing, let's thank the Lord that he helped you to win something, to do well when these prizes, let's give glory to the Lord. And then I would tell them, now keep these prizes away somewhere in your room.

Don't display them in the sitting room for everybody to see. It's not important. Your report card and all, keep it away. Don't show it to anybody. Show it to Daddy and Mommy, yes, but not to others. And then I would tell them, I used to do this regularly every year.

Remember my sons, when Jesus comes back, he's not going to ask you how much you got in physics, how much you got in maths, how much you got in social studies, or no. There were 800 students sitting there in the school today who never got any prizes, who were disappointed and went home.

But I say some of them may have been better than you in being kind to others, and helpful in the class, and being friendly. They'll get a better prize than you. You got a prize over here. This is not going to count in the Day of Judgment.

I said that to them every year. I hope you will tell your children what is important in the final examination, the real final examination that's coming for all of us. The things that are hidden, that are done in secret.

Jesus said, if you give money, don't let even your left hand know what your right hand has done. Give it in secret. As far as possible, don't let anyone know. Sometimes it's unavoidable. Because if you want to give a large gift to a ministry, you have to give it in a check.

And of course people will know. There you'll not disobey the command. Because some people say, oh, I can't give it in a check because everybody will know I gave it. No, it's perfectly okay. The question is, what is your motive?

Not whether people knew that you're the one who gave it, but why did you want people to know? If you did not want people to know, you're perfectly clear, 100%. Even though you gave it in a check and the treasurer there knew that you're the one who gave that money, perfectly okay.

Because your motive was not everybody must know that I gave that money. You did it that way because that was the only way to give a large amount of money as a gift. A lot of people in our church drop checks.

Because you can't put so much money into an offering box. They are not guilty. They're not trying to show how much they gave. They don't want it. So don't feel guilty about that. Motive. What is your motive?

What's your motive in writing that check so that everybody should know that you gave it? No. Your motive is, I don't know how else to give such a large amount. I can't give so many currency notes in there.

Motive. Motive. And I'll tell you the only person who knows the motive is you. Don't judge another person in this area. Because when we judge others, there's something else that's going to happen in the day of judgment.

Mercy, Judgment, and the Example of Christ

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, it's good to know these things. Matthew chapter 7, he said verse 1. Sorry. Verse 1 is don't judge lest you be judged. Verse 2 tells us how we will be judged. In the same way that you judge, you will be judged.

And by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. In other words, have you been very hard in judging other people? God will be very hard in judging you. Have you been very strict in judging other people?

God will be very strict in judging you. Have you been lenient and merciful in judging others? God will be lenient and merciful in judging you. It's good to know that now. Matters that are important for the final examination.

In the way you judged others, you will be judged. So it says here in the next verse, don't keep looking at the speck in your brother's eye. You know, we see something wrong, small thing wrong in a brother or a sister.

And immediately you go around telling other people. Oh, did you see that sister? How what she was wearing or this thing or that thing? What is that brother was doing? Did you see? Okay, fine. You will be judged in the same way when you stand before the Lord.

For some small little thing you did wrong, the Lord will pick up on, pick you on, pick you up on that because that's the way you judged all the other people. Some small irrelevant unimportant thing. You went around judging others on.

God will do exactly the same to you. Be ready for the final examination. I've often said in my home church, my brothers and sisters, if you listen to me and take seriously all that I teach you from God's word, it's like these tutorial colleges that train people for medical college examination and IIT entrance test and medical college entrance test, how they say guaranteed good results.

Come here to our tutorial college for one year. And I say the same thing. Take everything that you hear in CFC that we preach seriously guaranteed. You can even get 100 in the final examination. Yes.

You can get it. Take these things seriously. Don't just hear it today and forget it tomorrow, please. Till Christ comes. Take these things seriously. You see a speck in a brother's eye. Don't leave it.

He has not asked you to remove it. First of all, remove the beam from your eye. You know what the beam is? Have you ever meditated on Lord? What is this log in my eye? I'll explain to you. You can preach it in your next sermon.

The log is a judgmental attitude to that brother. Got it? That is the log. A judgmental attitude to that brother. Small little mistake in him. I'm telling you seriously, if you take these things really to heart, you'll be ready for the final examination without a doubt.

Let me show you another verse in James in chapter one. James chapter two. Don't get discouraged if you don't know these verses. I'm a teacher. God has appointed me as a teacher of the word. It is my responsibility to teach the word accurately, correctly, to show you the verses that you don't know, to show you the verses that are important for the final examination.

That's my job. That's what a school teacher does. The school teacher says, listen, these are the subjects to students. This is what is coming in the final examination. Please prepare for it. That's exactly what I'm doing.

Here's another verse. James chapter two and verse 13. It's a very, it's a scary verse. Some verses in the Bible are scary. Judgment from God will be merciless to one who did not show mercy to other people.

But mercy must triumph over judgment in your case. In other words, you come to a particular situation where somebody has done something wrong that has affected you and you can be merciless in the way you judge that person and punish that person because you've got authority.

You may be a father, a mother, you may be a boss in the office or an elder in a church and you're merciless in the way you treat that person. You wouldn't treat your own son or daughter like that, but this person is not my son or daughter.

You're merciless. Remember one thing, when your final examination comes before the Lord, the Lord will be just as merciless to you. That's what this verse says. So in my mind when something happens like that, it says there's judgment and mercy and it says here, let mercy get the victory in that struggle that goes on in your mind when a particular wrong was done by somebody.

And I say, should I judge that or be merciful? Let mercy triumph over judgment. It says there. I'm not saying that we should ignore the mistakes people do, but in our disciplining there must be mercy.

That's how God is. And that's when you know Jesus. Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ. Jesus said that in John 17 .3. This is eternal life. That they may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent and I see in Jesus Christ mercy, mercy, mercy.

I love that story of the woman caught in adultery. Adultery is a terrible sin. It's a terrible, terrible sin. I find even among Christians nowadays, they don't take it seriously. Adultery, fornication, sexual sin with someone you're not married to, even in your thoughts.

It's a terrible, terrible sin or watching somebody committing sexual sin. That's what pornography is. Watching someone committing sexual sin. That is my definition of pornography and you sit and watch it and some people even pay money to watch it.

Okay? It's a sad thing if such a person calls himself a believer, but it's a terrible sin. But if we are not careful about these things, about judging others, we need to be merciful. Jesus looked at that woman.

It was a terrible sin and the law of God was very strict. Women who commit adultery must be stoned to death. Not because God loved stoning people, not at all. But it's because God had to teach Israel adultery is a serious sin.

A woman must be faithful to her husband. A man must be faithful to his wife. And the way he taught that seriousness was if a man and woman who commit adultery, both of them must be stoned to death. So this woman is brought before Jesus by the Pharisees and they tell Jesus, Moses said this woman must be stoned to death.

What they did not know was that Jesus himself gave that law to Moses 1500 years earlier when he was in heaven. He was the one who told Moses from heaven, women caught in adultery must be stoned to death.

The same person who is sitting here now was the one from heaven who said that 1500 years earlier. And now the question comes, are you going to keep that law? And Jesus said, I like that. I've learned something from that myself.

It says he scribbled on the sand. I know what he was doing. He was a man like us. He was saying, Father, what should I say? That is the law. I cannot change the law. What should I say? And he gets a word from the father.

Tell them, the one who is without sin, throw the first stone. So he says it. It's a wonderful thing. I learned something from that, to listen to the father in tricky situations. What shall I say? I've been in situations like that where I say, Lord, what shall I say?

Give me a word. And Jesus says, one without sin, cast the first stone. Now some of those Pharisees could have pretended, yeah, there's no sin in my life. But he knew that if he dared to say that, Jesus would publicly reveal all his past sins.

Because he knew that Jesus could see through people. So he said, I better go away quietly. So one by one, starting at the eldest, they all left. Till there was one man left who was without sin, who could throw the stone according to Jesus' own teaching.

And that was Jesus himself. He could have done what he himself said, practiced what he preached, take a stone. But what did he do? Beautiful. If you haven't seen that verse, you must see it. John chapter 8, verse 11.

He looked at her and said, has no one condemned you? Verse 10. John 8, verse 11. And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you. Go, and sin no more. Mercy triumphed over judgment. Even though there was a law which said, you must stone the woman caught in adultery.

Jesus was the one who gave that law. He had the right not to do it. I love that. To me, it's a very precious passage of scripture that teaches me. He didn't say, be careful. He didn't say, oh adultery, it's not a serious thing.

It doesn't matter. I mean, we all sin. Never mind. He didn't say that. It's a very serious sin. Don't sin again. Don't ever go and commit adultery again. That is the balance. I've often said that in CFC, we preach the full gospel.

The Full Gospel: No Condemnation and Sinning No More

And the full gospel some people say is, Jesus is savior, Jesus is baptized in the Holy Spirit, Jesus is healer, and Jesus is coming king. What about, Jesus is the overcomer, Revelation 3 .21. And you must overcome as I overcame.

That's not even there. Healer, I'll tell you honestly, I don't care if I've not healed all my life of some sickness. I can still please the Lord and go to heaven. I want to be saved from sin. I want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

And I believe he's coming king. But, here is the full gospel we preach in CFC. Two sentences that Jesus says, number one, I don't condemn you. Number two, don't sin again. That is the full gospel. All in one sentence, John 8 .11.

Number one, no condemnation. Because Christ has died for my sins, and all of it is blotted out. His blood was shed for me. He hung on the cross and he was cursed for me. So that the curse will never come upon me.

No condemnation, zero condemnation. What's the second part of the full gospel? Never sin again. That's the part which is left out. That is the full gospel, John 8 .11. Tell me where you hear it preached.